1. Field of the Invention
The invention resides in the field of electrical contact switches wherein the contacts are closed by the application of an external force upon at least one of the contacts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is an abundance of commercially available electrical contact switches for sensing the proximity of mechanical elements in instrumentation. These are used most often to limit the travel of a moveable component or to set in motion additional assemblies of the device. Difficulty is encountered as the size of the mechanisms is reduced as the parts thereof become more fragile and require smaller switch units due to size limitations.
At the same time the requirement for reliability may increase due to the inaccessibility of the equipment or the difficulty of replacing a non-functioning switch because of size and product design constraints. The present invention was created to address these problems in the construction of a miniature motorized stage more particularly described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,620, issued Dec. 31, 1991, to the same inventor.
The applicant is unaware of any mechanism similar to the invention described herein in the prior art.